Stable fire claims 43 horses: 'This is as bad as it gets'

Ben Wallace, trainer of the year in Canada in 1999, says he does not know if he will be able to rebound after losing 17 of 19 horses he trained in a fire that destroyed Barn 1 at the Classy Lane Stables near Puslinch, Ont., Monday night.

“This is a tough one today,” he said. “This is as bad as it gets. You wake up, and everything is gone. You walk over to the barn and there is just nothing.”

Wallace lost Breeders’ Crown trophies in the fire. “I don’t even have a stopwatch,” he said.

Wallace co-owned 12 of the 17 horses lost in the fire. One of them, Apprentice Hanover, had just won an open pace at Woodbine Racetrack to increase his career earnings to more than $1-million. Another, Penji Hanover, raced in last June's North America Cup.

He also lost six young horses that had just turned two years old and they had showed talent. “I was fortunate to some degree,” he said. “I kept two of them at another facility. That’s pretty much all I got left. The rest are gone.

“There were some nice horses that were lost and I’m not the only one.”

Also losing horses in the fire were long-time top trainer Roger Mayotte, who had a couple of promising young, unraced horses in his stable as well, including a trotting colt by Kadabra that was a $75,000 (U.S.) purchase last fall at Harrisburg, Pa.

Wallace learned about the fire Monday night at about 11 p.m. when James Millier, owner of the five-bran stable, phoned him from Florida, where he had been visiting.

“The barn is gone,” Millier told Wallace.

“He was almost inaudible, he was so devastated,” Wallace said. “I couldn’t comprehend it.”

Wallace immediately drove to the facility, fully engulfed. “The horses never got out,” he said.

Wallace had spent the morning and early afternoon at Classy Lane Stables, before heading to Woodbine for qualifying races at 4 p.m.  He called the complex “state of the art.”

“This is not like some old-dried-out wood barn,” Wallace said. “This is a beautiful facility.”

Wallace busied himself Tuesday, calling all of the horses’ owners in Florida, Chicago, New York and Ontario.

The industry is so supportive in times of trouble, that Wallace says a number of people have already contacted him to train horses. “It’s nice, but this just happened 12 hours ago,” he said. “I’ve still not quite absorbed exactly what I’ve lost, as opposed to what I’m going to do going forward.”

The fire will create job losses, as grooms will lose employment. Wallace employed six. “It’ll take a while before it’s corrected,” he said. “This is a significant loss.”

Firefighters from multiple area departments responded to Classy Lane Stables Training Centre, just after 11 p.m. Monday evening, to battle a raging blaze in Barn 1, one of the centre’s five stables, Yahoo Sports' Chris Lomon reports.

Barn 1 was home to horses trained by Wallace, Roger Mayotte, Chantal Mitchell, Kris Di Cenzo, Dan Lagace and Floyd Amos.

Barb Miller, who owns Classy Lane with her husband Jamie, said approximately 43 horses died. The Millers were vacationing in Florida when they were informed of the multi-million dollar fire.

"We have talked to some of the horse owners,” Steven Goode, chief of the Puslinch Department, told reporters. “This is a very unfortunate event for us and the township of Puslinch. Many of the workers that work here and the owners reside in our township... We consider this a horse community."

Many of the horses that perished competed at Woodbine Racetrack and Flamboro Downs, located near Hamilton.

“This is an unspeakable tragedy for the standardbred horse industry that loves its horses beyond measure,” said Dave Briggs, co-editor of Canadian Thoroughbred magazine. “Fortunately, this is an incredibly tight-knit, resilient community that has banded together to help its own recover from tragedy before.”

The Office of the Fire Marshal has been called in to investigate and the cause of the fire is not yet known.

In 1992, a barn fire at Mohawk Racetrack claimed the lives of 69 horses. Ten years later, 34 horses perished at Woodbine in a barn fire that was deemed an act of arson.

UPDATE: The Central Ontario Standardbred Association estimates the preliminary cost of the damage is between $4 million and $6 million, and has set up a GoFundMe page for online donations. For more details, go here.